Isabel García

 

Research Associate at the Bionanoplasmonics Laboratory

Tel:+34 943 005 300. Ext 309

Dr. Isabel García obtained her PhD in Chemistry Sciences in 2003 by the University Autónoma of Madrid under the supervision of Prof. María del Carmen de la Torre Egido in the field of natural products synthesis.

After a post-doc in the group of Prof. María Carmen Carreño, where she worked on the area of supramolecular chemistry, Dr. García moved to the group of Prof. Soledad Penadés (IIQ-CSIC, Seville), where she prepared and characterized of gold nanoparticles functionalized with biomolecules to be applied as anti-cancer vaccines and as transfecting agents. This was the beginning of a new experience where her expertise in chemistry was applied to materials science and biology following a multidisciplinary approach.

As a result, Dr. García followed the group of Prof. Penadés moving to CIC biomaGUNE (San Sebastian) as a researcher of CIBER-BBN, working on the design and preparation of nanotechnology-based smart systems that can detect bio and pathological processes for healthcare in a translational perspective.

In 2016, Dr. García joined the Bioanoplasmonics Lab at CIC biomaGUNE, led by Prof. Luis M. Liz- Marzán. Dr. García has developed a broad expertise in the design, synthesis, functionalization and characterization of nanostructured materials, mainly based on biocompatible and targeted gold nanotools (including plasmonic multimodal probes) as theranostics systems and as sensors for detecting cancer metabolites and other specific biomarkers related to neurological diseases. As permanent staff of CIBER-BBN, Dr. García has participated and/or coordinated several CIBER-BBN projects. In addition, she has participated in projects in close collaboration with hospitals (Gregorio Marañón Hospital and Quirón group) and with companies such as Progenika Biopharma S.L. and Praxis Pharmaceuticals.

Dr. García has co-authored over 70 articles in peer-reviewed journals, 5 reviews and 4 book chapters. She is the co-inventor of 6 patents in the fields of nanotechnology and bio-nanotechnology, 3 of them submitted in the last five years. She has also been involved in teaching and in the supervision of PhD students and MSc.

  • Ziani, K; Plou, J; Saenz-del-Burgo, L; García, I; Pedraz, JL; Ciriza, J, Hyaluronic acid incorporation into hybrid alginate-based bioinks promotes long term viability and controlled release of 3D embedded scaffolds mesenchymal stem cells in absence of Dimethyl Sulfoxide cryoprotectant J. Drug Deliv. Sci. Technol., 2025, 106, 106749
  • Nunez-Martinez, M; Dong, J; Garcia, I; De Busschere, B; Claes, N; Bals, S; Liz-Marzan, LM, Distinct structural interactions of polyadenine and polythymine on gold nanoparticles: from single strands to duplexes. Chem. Sci., 2025, In press
  • Nunez-Martinez, M; Dong, J; Garcia, I; Liz-Marzan, LM, Corrigendum to "Chiroptical hybrid nanomaterials based on metal nanoparticles and biomolecules" [Adv. Colloid Interface Sci. 341 (2025) 103501]. Adv. Colloid Interface Sci., 2025, 342, 103560
  • Nunez-Martinez, M; Dong, J; Garcia, I; Liz-Marzan, LM, Chiroptical hybrid nanomaterials based on metal nanoparticles and biomolecules. Adv. Colloid Interface Sci., 2025, 341, 103501
  • Armero, L; Plou, J; Valera, PS; Serna, S; García, I; Liz-Marzán, LM., Multiplex Determination of Glycan Profiles on Urinary Prostate-Specific Antigen by Quartz-Crystal Microbalance Combined with Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering ACS Sensors, 2024, 9, 4811-4821
  • Valera, PS; Plou, J; García, I; Astobiza, I; Viera, C; M. Aransay, A; Martin, JE; Sasselli, IR; Carracedo, A; Liz-Marzán, LM. , SERS analysis of cancer cell-secreted purines reveals a unique paracrine crosstalk in MTAP-deficient tumors Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., 2023, 120, e2311674120
  • Javier Plou, Pablo S. Valera, Isabel García, David Vila-Liarte, Carlos Renero-Lecuna, Jesús Ruiz-Cabello, Arkaitz Carracedo, Luis M. Liz-Marzán, Machine Learning-Assisted High-Throughput SERS Classification of Cell Secretomes Small, 2023, 19, 2207658
  • Fernandez-Carro, E; Salomon-Cambero, R; Armero, L; Castro-Abril, HA; Ayensa-Jimenez, J; Martinez, MA; Ochoa, I; Alcaine, C; Garcia, I; Ciriza, J, Nanoparticles Stokes radius assessment through permeability coefficient determination within a new stratified epithelium on-chip model Artif. Cells Nanomed. Biotechnol., 2023, 51, 466-475
  • Lanzavecchia, G; Kuttruff, J; Doricchi, A; Douaki, A; Ramankutty, KK; Garcia, I; Lin, LYY; Rodriguez, AV; Wagberg, T; Krahne, R; Maccaferri, N; Garoli, D, Plasmonic Photochemistry as a Tool to Prepare Metallic Nanopores with Controlled Diameter for Optimized Detection of Single Entities Adv. Opt. Mater., 2023, 11, 2300786
  • Javier Plou, Pablo S. Valera, Isabel García, Carlos D. L. de Albuquerque, Arkaitz Carracedo, Luis M. Liz-Marzán, Prospects of Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy for Biomarker Monitoring toward Precision Medicine ACS Photonics, 2022, 9, 333-350
  • Galarreta-Rodriguez, I; Marcano, L; Castellanos-Rubio, I; de Muro, IG; Garcia, I; Olivi, L; Fernandez-Gubieda, ML; Castellanos-Rubio, A; Lezama, L; de Larramendi, IR; Insausti, M, Towards the design of contrast-enhanced agents: systematic Ga3+ doping on magnetite nanoparticles Dalton Trans., 2022, 51, 2517-2530
  • Spaeth, P; Adhikari, S; Heyvaert, W; Zhuo, X; García, I; Liz-Marzán, LM; Bals, S; Orrit, M; Albrecht, W. , Photothermal Circular Dichroism Measurements of Single Chiral Gold Nanoparticles Correlated with Electron Tomography ACS Photonics, 2022, 9, 3995-4004
  • Plou, J; Molina-Martínez, B; García-Astrain, C; Langer, J; García, I; Ercilla, A; Perumal, G; Carracedo, A; Liz-Marzán, LM. , Nanocomposite Scaffolds for Monitoring of Drug Diffusion in Three-Dimensional Cell Environments by Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy Nano Lett., 2021, 21, 8785-8793
  • Zhang, YZ; Gallego, I; Plou, J; Pedraz, JL; Liz-Marzan, LM; Ciriza, J; Garcia, I, SERS monitoring of local pH in encapsulated therapeutic cells Nanoscale, 2021, 13, 14354-14362
  • Plou, J; Charconnet, M; García, I; Calvo, J; Liz-Marzán, LM. , Preventing Memory Effects in Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Substrates by Polymer Coating and Laser-Activated Deprotection ACS Nano, 2021, 15, 8984-8995
  • Ribeiro de Barros, H; García, I; Kuttner, C; Zeballos, N; Camargo, PHC; de Torresi, SIC; López-Gallego, F; Liz-Marzán, LM. , Mechanistic Insights into the Light-Driven Catalysis of an Immobilized Lipase on Plasmonic Nanomaterials ACS Catal., 2021, 11, 414-423
  • Villa, JE; Garcia, I; Jimenez de Aberasturi, D; Pavlov, V; Sotomayor, MD; Liz-Marzán, LM. , SERS-based immunoassay for monitoring cortisol-related disorders Biosens. Bioelectron., 2020, 165, 112418
  • Terán-Navarro, H; Calderon-Gonzalez, R; Salcines-Cuevas, D; García, I; Marradi, M; Freire, J; Salmon, E; Portillo-Gonzalez, M; Frande-Cabanes, E; García-Castaño, A; Martinez-Callejo, V; Gomez-Roman, J; Tobes, R; Rivera, F; Yañez-Diaz, S; Álvarez-Domínguez, C. , Pre-clinical development of Listeria-based nanovaccines as immunotherapies for solid tumours: insights from melanoma Oncoimmunology, 2019, 8, e1541534
  • Mosquera, J; García, I; Henriksen-Lacey, M; González-Rubio, G; Liz-Marzán, LM. , Reducing Protein Corona Formation and Enhancing Colloidal Stability of Gold Nanoparticles by Capping with Silica Monolayers Chem. Mater., 2019, 31, 57-61
  • García, I; Henriksen-Lacey, M; Calvo, J; Jimenez de Aberasturi, D; Paz, MM; Liz-Marzán, LM. , Size-dependent transport and cytotoxicity of mitomycin-gold nano-particle conjugates in 2D and 3D mammalian cell models Bioconjugate Chem., 2019, 30, 242-252
  • Quintanilla, M; Garcia, I; de Lazaro, I; Garcia-Alvarez, R; Henriksen-Lacey, M; Vranic, S; Kostarelos, K; Liz-Marzan, LM, Thermal monitoring during photothermia: hybrid probes for simultaneous plasmonic heating and near-infrared optical nanothermometry Theranostics, 2019, 9, 7298-7312
  • Villaverde, G; Gomez-Grana, S; Guisasola, E; Garcia, I; Hanske, C; Liz-Marzan, LM; Baeza, A; Vallet-Regi, M, Targeted Chemo-Photothermal Therapy: A Nanomedicine Approximation to Selective Melanoma Treatment Part. Part. Syst. Charact., 2018, 35, 1800148
  • García, I; Mosquera, J; Plou, J; Liz-Marzán, LM. , Plasmonic Detection of Carbohydrate-Mediated Biological Events Adv. Opt. Mater., 2018, 6, 1800680
  • Climent, N; García, I; Marradi, M; Chiodo, F; Miralles, L; Maleno, MJ; Gatell, JM; García, F; Penadés, S; Plana, M. , Loading dendritic cells with gold nanoparticles (GNPs) bearing HIV-peptides and mannosides enhance HIV-specific T cell responses Nanomed. Nanotechnol. Biol. Med., 2018, 14, 339-351
  • Mosquera, J; García, I; Liz-Marzán, LM. , Cellular Uptake of Nanoparticles versus Small Molecules: A Matter of Size Acc. Chem. Res., 2018, 51, 2305-2313
  • Bhat, R; García, I; Aznar, E; Arnaiz, B; Martínez-Bisbal, MC; Liz-Marzán, LM; Penadés, S; Martínez-Máñez, R. , Lectin-gated and glycan functionalized mesoporous silica nanocontainers for targeting cancer cells overexpressing Lewis X antigen Nanoscale, 2018, 10, 239-249
  • Mosquera, J; Henriksen-Lacey, M; García, I; Martínez-Calvo, M; Rodríguez, J; Mascareñas, JL; Liz-Marzán, LM. , Cellular Uptake of Gold Nanoparticles Triggered by Host-Guest Interactions J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2018, 140, 4469-4472
  • Calderon-Gonzalez, R; Terán-Navarro, H; García, I; Marradi, M; Salcines-Cuevas, D; Yañez-Diaz, S; Solis-Angulo, A; Frande-Cabanes, E; Fariñas, MC; Garcia-Castaño, A; Gomez-Roman, J; Penades, S; Rivera, F; Freire, J; Álvarez-Domínguez, C. , Gold glyconanoparticles coupled to listeriolysin O 91–99 peptide serve as adjuvant therapy against melanoma Nanoscale, 2017, 9, 10721-10732
  • Calderon-Gonzalez, R; Frande-Cabanes, E; Teran-Navarro, H; Marimon, JM; Freire, J; Salcines-Cuevas, D; Fariñas, MC; Gonzalez-Rico, C; Marradi, M; Garcia, I; Alkorta-Gurrutxaga, M; San Nicolas-Gomez, A; Castañeda-Sampedro, A; Yañez-Diaz, S; Penades, S; Punzon, C; Gomez-Roman, J; Rivera, F; Fresno, M; Alvarez-Dominguez, C. , GNP-GAPDH1-22 nanovaccines prevent neonatal listeriosis by blocking microglial apoptosis and bacterial dissemination Oncotarget, 2017, 8, 53916-53934
  • Langer, J; García, I; Liz-Marzán, LM. , Real-time dynamic SERS detection of galectin using glycan-decorated gold nanoparticles Faraday Discuss., 2017, 205, 363-375
Funding Agency Call Identifier Acronym Title Project Code Start Date End Date Status
CIC biomaGUNE CIC biomaGUNE MASTER Program 2022   Nanothermometry in tumor cells: control of nanothermometer localization   2023-05-22 2023-09-01 Finalised
CIBER CONVOCATORIA INTRAMURAL DE PROYECTOS DE DESARROLLO TECNOLÓGICO CIBEREHD 2021 Ad-APT-ing HuR SUMOylation Ad-APT-ing HuR SUMOylation: an aptamer discovery program for liver cancer   2021-07-01 2023-06-30 Finalised
CIBER CONVOCATORIA INTRAMURAL DE PROYECTOS DE DESARROLLO TECNOLÓGICO CIBEREHD 2021 (managed by CIBER) Ad-APT-ing HuR SUMOylation: an aptamer discovery program for liver cancer   2021-07-01 2023-06-30 Finalised